We just got back from our date

and I found a pearl in my oyster! It was so exciting! It is creamy colored, almost perfectly round and the size of a peppercorn. Better yet, no dental work was harmed in its acquisition.

It was a great anniversary, despite the completely awful day that it was. I did get a new set of wheels for the occasion. After I came out of the chiropractor this morning, I noticed that PennyVann was hissing at me. Closer inspection showed a tire cracked and deflating and you can't just replace one, of course. So my anniversary gift was set of front tires and another $180 credit card bill to go with it. They nicely enhanced the orange roses he and Charlie picked out for me last night and the artwork the girls made by gluing dead crushed leaves in patterns on paper. Oh, and the large rock Dixie found in the yard and glued to her paper.

The whole day felt like the plot of a National Lampoon vacation. My chiro appointment had taken forever because the current treatment simply is not working. He took new x-rays and will come up with a new plan of attack by tomorrow. I start a new job in a few weeks and it will involve sitting at a computer for eight hours a day while I grade TAKS tests. It lasts just over a month and the pay is great, but I am daunted at the thought of just how much that is going to hurt. I come out, find the tire, go home, switch vehicles and head to church. I arrive only forty minutes late. The study was great, the baby shower was nice, then I zoomed back north to get Dixie. By then, the back pain was so bad that my hips were zapping each time I moved my head, my feet were tingling/numb and my thumbs involuntarily moving.

Work was just an exercise in frustration. I think my pain and general grumpiness have made it hard to be the good teacher I know I am.

I get home and my daughters are playing in the front yard in their Easter dresses. You know, Easter hasn't happened yet, right? I get them re-dressed, try three times to call the friend who is sitting and am getting dressed when the kids all go outside with out an adult. I follow after them, realize that it is just best to strap them into their carseats and then go back to finish my primping. While I'm out, Dowlan finishes dressing and comes outside, locking the door behind them.

Neither of us have keys.

I am livid. This is the second time he has done this on the way to a date. I, fortunately, had already stuck the cell phone in my pocket. I call the friend who has a spare key, but she is no where near it. Dowlan breaks into the house. I grab my stuff, call the sitter to say that we're coming after all, and we head off. A mere 8.5 of the 9 miles into the trip, she calls to say that she has food poisoning and can't watch the kids, but since we're so close, she might as well try. We're only going to dinner, right? How long can it take?

Two hours. That is how long it can take. While kind, sick Valerie has a total of five small children, five and under.

Dinner was amazing. A bit of the way into it, I asked Dowlan this. "When you were a boy, thinking ahead to what your future would hold, did you ever imagine that you would be sitting across the table from your wife, sharing your anniversary, as she ate a tray of a dozen of one kind of whole dead animals, followed by tearing apart and ravishing the tiny bodies of another type of animal then paying for it with a gift card won at a church Three Amigo's tortilla toss?"

He didn't have much of an answer.

But the Pappadeaux's dozen raw oysters for 3.95 followed by the 1.25 lbs of crawfish boil for 3.95 made for incredibly fine dining. You get a free dessert on an anniversary and the créme brulee made me shiver. It was just that good.

The restaurant was crowded and noisy, so not much talking happened, but we really, really needed that. We're both so stressed right now that we don't intersect very often.

Six years. We've made it six years.